A number of posters on this thread have mentioned the increasing rate of depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, and suicides during the pandemic…including among those of college age students.
Some students will be able to deal with the new college ‘experience’, and some won’t. Those who might struggle to adjust aren’t weak, or not resilient, or not trying hard enough.
Mental health supports on many campuses are already woefully understaffed, and I do see the demand for their services increasing, not decreasing over the next several semesters. No matter how strong or resilient a college student is, some will still need mental health support.
Campus mental health support also will be asked to help students who have lost parents from covid, or whose parents have lost their jobs and may now be facing housing or food insecurity. Expect those resources to be stretched very thin.
After 45 days empty the dorms won’t have any virus particles, so a deep clean over the winter break isn’t about the virus. They don’t want students to bring as much stuff and be ready to empty their dorm quickly.
My issue is that we can argue all we want about how students should “man up” and be adult etc, but the truth is that these schools are opening up to grab those room and board dollars - period. They don’t care about the experience or the lack of one - they are focused on dangling just enough hope to get kids to commit. It’s disingenuous.
This is not my field of expertise but maybe just out of precaution? Much easier just throwing it into your wash as suggested also. Maybe it has something to do with it imbedding in the material. I know with the wash cycle the surfactant (soap), and the moving around in the washer /dryer tubs actually helps kill the virus. Plus with CDC guidelines they might be giving you good VS best practices. Plus with all of this everything is very new. The important thing is to clean it.
Some are opening up because they believe the residential experience is vital, and they believe can be provided with appropriate precautions ( see, Oxford, Princeton, Yale). Some are opening up because the institution’s survival will be in serious jeapordy if they do not do so ( many others). Both rationales are reasonable and should be apparent to parents.
Agree about BC. I applaud the schools who are trying a thoughtful approach to bring all students back, but do think the BC plan is risky. It’s a very dense campus which would make social distancing much harder. It will be impossible to keep kids from going off campus, public transportation is nearby which is a risk etc. And while MA has done a great job with controlling the virus, it is Boston and the surrounding towns that are much more at risk. Williams on the western part of the state with all singles, a much less dense campaign and a county that never had a lot of infections will have a much better chance of success even though they are allowing all kids back.
We need to learn to live with this virus. The tiny percentage of the U.S. population CC posters represent may be able to self-quarantine until there’s a vaccine, but 99% of Americans can not. Getting back to school is part of learning to live with the virus. There are no better plans right now, just different ones. We should have a deeper understanding of the “better” ways to educate in a post-Covid world by the end of December.
Hi. I took a glance at the AAAP article you cited upstream and it really seems to be stuck at the conversation folks were having back in February and early March about the ability of masks to protect the wearer. I’m not a doctor, but I did live through the situation in New York City and certainly by early April the recommendations (from all kinds of sources) were to wear anything that was comfortable for you, not so much because it would protect you but because almost any type of cloth barrier will slow down the amount of spit, vapor, droplets - whathaveyou - escaping your own mouth and possibly hitting someone else in the face (it’s really kind of icky realizing that this has been going on for millennia, and we’re only now obsessing about it.) It’s all about cutting down on the viral load - the collective viral load - that everyone is exposed to at any given time.
Not even 9 :00 central time and interesting conversation. It seems there are definitely different parenting styles here to say the least… Lol. I like what @momofsenior1 said. It’s how you frame and what expectations your giving your children. Some like to coddle their children (over protective parents), some don’t. Not saying one approach is right or wrong. I have been called a helicopter at one point.
Also there is so much fear in some of the parents voices here that, that has to translate to your children. Yes, I understand that this forum is a sounding board and a good one at that. But…
Will Kids make friends? Will they have study groups etc? Yes and yes. I am sure most schools will be having groups for projects. Kids will figure out how to make friends with someone. Kids walk home from school. Take busses (or not), have social time on the playground or walking from class to class in college. There are still activities to join. One of my Son’s friends was met at a bus stop waiting to go to the game. But they wait for busses for other events also… Lol.
Yes, for some, mental health issues can come to the forefront and others not so much. You all know your own kids. But I hear loneliness, homesickness, not making friends and it seems the parents are more afraid then the children. If your child has issues with loneliness, homesickness etc then maybe going away to any college will be a struggle. There are usually good local options. My kids have gone away to summer activities /camps since like 7 th grade. They are fortunate. Maybe that is why we didn’t experience this??
I also tell my kids, every semester for the last 4/5 years, that we pay for college. With that they get a lot of free stuff like groups, clubs activities and to “get your monies worth”. Go to music, art, theater activities since I’m paying for it Lol… But I also tell them that there is the tutoring services, mental health services. They can go without telling me. If they want to tell me then great. College can be a stressful time for many. This advice is for any semester, pandemic or not. It’s not about “manning up” as some suggest. But at some point your kids have to decide what kind of experience they want out of life. This year is not perfect. Climbing walls will be shut down or cleaned frequently (probably should of anyway… Think about it). There will be a lot of online learning at all schools. No question about it. There will be hybrid learning. Many won’t have the big football game to go to in high school or in college… Life will be different. They will find other things to do and get involved with. The sky is not falling that I can guarantee you but there is a cool comet like this whole month. Watch for it.
For the record, I never suggested students should " man up". I did state they need to mourn, put this in perspective, consider their options, and move on, using whatever resources are at their disposal, for as others have stated, the sky is not falling for college students now. It might in the future, but it is not now.
@knowstuff I agree. Kids should take advantage of all of the things at college that we are paying for…and this year there’s likely to be very few of those extras!
As for “manning up”, I think it’s more a matter of being realistic and facing the facts. I wish colleges would share details about how this semester will look so that students have the right expectations. That doesn’t seem to be happening so much, or those details are changing over time. Being able to envision what the fall might look like would help kids prepare.
One thing about W&M that @SailAway24 shared is that they at least gave a lot of detail. Students might not like those details but they know what they are getting.
Are the details really not available, or are the students/parents not looking for them? Does it really matter that much what the details are in July if the situation is totally different by October? Parents and students alike will need to show adaptability to changing circumstances, or if that is not possible, opt out of returning to campus. No schools can offer guarantees this year. Good lesson to learn for adulting.
I agree with this as well and I know it’s hard to convince a student who really, really wants to go back to instead take remote class from home or defer but those options might be the best for a student in the long run. Sending kids back to college dorms under some of these plans seems like it’s just going to be a repeat of spring without the refund of room and board. Even if the kids aren’t sent home, they could be stuck in their rooms a lot more after the plans start to prove untenable. If cases start to spike on campus, colleges have two choices - ask kids to stay in their rooms, close the other buildings on campus, and either deliver meals or only do take out or to send kids home.
Lots of high school districts out there already deciding the risks for the community is too high and school will be remote. I don’t see how it would be different for colleges.